


of monsters and men

by red-russian (winter_hawk)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1606853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_hawk/pseuds/red-russian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of what could have happened, if Bucky was drafted instead of enlisting. If he lost more of himself than Steve realized. If, when all was said and done, Bucky blamed Steve.</p><p>The story of the man who became the soldier.</p><p> <br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	of monsters and men

**Author's Note:**

> beta read by the wonderful [twisted ingenue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedingenue/pseuds/twistedingenue)
> 
> (Mostly canon-compliant with some deviations, CA:TFA with slight mention of CA:TWS. Sorta Bucky-centric) 
> 
> There are some triggers in this fic, but I've chosen not to tag most of them for the sake of not spoiling the plot. If you would like to, please do check the full list of warnings at the end of the fic to be safe.

Steve sprawls flat against the helicarrier floor, arms slack at his sides while the Winter Soldier’s knees anchor his hips, a solid weight across his pelvis. He braces for the impact of another punch and turns his head to spray the deck with a mouthful of blood.

 

“I’m with you—” he starts to say, and the rest is gone in a faint _crack_ , lost in the din of screeching metal, as the Winter Soldier lunges down and breaks Captain America’s neck with a brutal twist of his hands.

 

When Steve Rogers falls into the river, no one jumps in to pull him back out. His body drifts among the wreckage in the Potomac for a week before a diving team recovers it.

 

 

 

i.

 

The day that Bucky Barnes receives his draft orders, he drinks enough whisky to knock out a lesser man, or at least a mid-sized horse. Steve comes home to the apartment that evening to find Bucky sitting on the fire escape in nothing but his undershirt and briefs, reeking of booze and acrid smoke. He has the decency to look guilty as he hastily stubs out the cigarette in his hand and tosses it down to the street below before swaying into the room on quivering legs.

“You’ll catch your death sitting out there,” Steve says, in that breathy voice he gets when he’s trying to admonish him but doesn’t have the energy, and Bucky can’t meet his eyes, not when the paperwork is right there, lying in an accusing heap by the wall.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky replies, and doesn’t wait for the sound of Steve’s long-suffering sigh before sinking down into a chair and burying his face in his hands.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Steve says. Bucky barks a laugh into the damp pressure of his palms. He listens to the papers rustle as Steve finally notices them, gathers them up off the floor, reads through them, and sets them aside.

“Bucky,” he says, followed by a long, steadying breath. The silence stretches out between them, like molasses, thick and viscous.

“It’s just– Damn it all. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Bucky finally says.

“I know,” Steve replies, and Bucky waits for a reproach but receives, instead, a quick press of soft lips against his mouth.

“Steve–” He opens his eyes in time to catch the expression on Steve’s face, the horror and the immediate regret as he starts to recoil, hands thrown up in a penitent gesture. Bucky huffs in protest, hauls him back in with a firm grip around his wrists and kisses him, slow and proper.

“Took you long enough, Rogers,” he says, and he’d be embarrassed by the way his voice cracks, right in the middle of his words, except he can’t focus on anything but the way Steve’s eyes are blazing and the quick slip of his hands along Bucky’s waist, how he shifts down onto his knees and leans in with fierce determination.

 

(“Don’t think,” Bucky gasps, his head thrown back and the long arch of his neck exposed, “that I won’t return the, ah, sentiment– Oh God, Steve–”

“I know,” Steve repeats, breath hitching around the syllables. His teeth sink into Bucky's skin for a long moment, a sharp, delicious pressure on the inside of his thigh. “Bucky, I know.”)

 

 

ii.

 

The day before Bucky is due to ship out with the 107th, Steve comes home with a bruise the approximate size and shape of a cinderblock blooming across his torso.

When they go to bed that night, Bucky is unable to look away from the ghastly blotches illuminated by the moonlight. “You’re goddamn lucky to be alive, Steve.”

Steve coughs, seems to choke on his reply, and settles for several quick breaths and a long look in Bucky’s direction.

“Don’t go looking for fights when I’m gone,” Bucky says, and Steve reaches out, hooks his fingers over Bucky’s collarbone. He pulls until they are pressed together, from shoulder to hip, so that Bucky can feel the thrum of Steve’s pulse in the warm, swollen skin of his chest.

In the morning, Bucky wakes to an empty bed and the sight of Steve, shirtless, standing by the window and gazing out at the cool October sky. He appears to be trying to decide whether to smile or weep.

The bruise shines, a sickly green-blue stain. Bucky comes up behind him and prods it lightly with his fingertips, watching as it whitens for a moment before the color leaches back in and curves over Steve’s ribs, like a brand.

There is nowhere for him to comfortably place his arms where it wouldn’t hurt Steve, so Bucky slides his hands along his wrists instead, thumbs slipping over the delicate bones and thin, branching veins.

“Don’t go looking for fights,” he says, turning to press his lips to the top of Steve's head, and both of them pretend not to notice the truncation of the statement.

 

 

iii.

 

Bucky decides, the moment his feet hit English soil, that he will keep Steve away from the dark, horrible corners and crevices of humanity in which conflict and hatred hide and fester. At all costs, he will protect Steve from the evils of men, from the monsters that feast on the destruction that has torn whole countries apart.

On frigid nights and lonely patrols, it is all Bucky can do to hold to that flare of warmth, that steady flame.

(From bar room to bivouac, conversation topics are few and unvaried.  
  
"What'd you enlist for?"  
  
"I didn't enlist," Bucky starts. To his everlasting shame, he adds, "for anything in particular." Surrounded by men who gave up more than Bucky has ever owned or dreamed of having, he doesn't have the courage to admit that, given the choice, he would still be in Brooklyn with Steve.

"You got a sweetheart back home, Barnes?"

"Nah, just look at him, the scrawny fool."

"I'll show you a scrawny fool," Bucky mutters, to a wave of chortles, muffled by hands and sleeves.

"Have to be one, to lay eyes on you.")

 

Bucky hasn't prayed since he was a kid, but starting on the day he gets drafted, he thanks God each night for the fact that Steve is safe at home, as far as possible from the corruption of war.

 

 

iv.

 

The first time Bucky Barnes kills a man, he almost dies trying.

The German officer sneaks up behind him when Bucky is on his first patrol. There is one brief rush of movement, a gust of air, then a firm pressure on his neck, a leather glove pushing up against his nose and covering his mouth.

With his head buzzing like a hornet’s nest, Bucky pushes against the soldier’s grip, forces his way out with strength he didn’t know he had. He turns and gets one glimpse of a slick, dark helmet before the man is on him, knocking him into the dirt and grappling for control. He lands two heavy, jarring blows across Bucky’s temple and jaw before Bucky is even able to grasp the handle of the knife strapped to his belt.

Bucky doesn’t hesitate. Not when he pulls the knife out, not when he lunges and rolls them until he is crouched over the soldier’s chest, knees on his sternum; not when he sinks the blade, nearly to the hilt, into the yielding flesh of the man’s throat.

The amount of blood is astonishing. Bucky pulls back, but not fast enough; it washes over his left hand in a warm, thick flow, and the sensation alone is enough to make him retch, heaving vomit and bile onto the dry grass.

Still astride the soldier’s chest, Bucky can feel his desperate, futile struggle for breath. He leans down, grips the knife until his knuckles blanch, and pulls the blade horizontally through the soldier’s neck, right out the side. He sits there, eyes closed and hands shaking, as the man bleeds out beneath him.

The iron tang cuts through the stench in the air, through the rancid taste in his mouth and the sobs ripping from his lungs. Bucky reaches up with his clean hand to wipe the sweat and tears from his face, and it comes away sticky and crimson. Side by side, he cannot tell the difference.

Turns out all men bleed the same.

 

-

 

(That memory comes rushing back, sharp and clear as cut glass, when Zola comes down to the cells to select his next victim and Bucky pushes to the front, striding with a bravado he doesn’t truly possess, to put himself between Zola and the other prisoners.

  
When he allows himself to be taken by the arm and pulled out through the cell door, the only thought on his mind is retribution.

“A sacrificial lamb,” says Zola, a pleased smile tugging at his toadish face.

  
It is with no thoughts at all that Bucky is led away, down the long, dark hallway from which no other soldier has ever returned.)

 

 

v.

 

Blowing up the Hydra enclosure gives Bucky none of the satisfaction it should have. While Steve is rounding up the stragglers and delegating responsibilities, Bucky watches the blazing flames, willing himself to feel something - rage, fulfillment, even despair.  
  
His fingers twitch as he reaches up and grasps his dog tags, fingertips skipping along each link in the chain around his neck, like a row of rosary beads. The heat of a shockwave washes over him as the far end of the building shakes and implodes, but the sensation is fleeting and unsatisfactory.  
  
Bucky cannot stop shivering, cannot draw a full breath in, and he suddenly realizes that this is what Steve must have felt like, all the time, when he had an asthma attack and his lungs wouldn't fill up properly, and he couldn't move, couldn't breathe--  
  
He thinks this might be what dying feels like.  
  
By the time Steve finds him again, he is leaning against a tree and silently willing his legs not to give out.  
  
Steve reaches out, hesitantly, and cups Bucky's shoulder with one impossibly large hand. "Told you not to win the war 'til I got here, didn't I?"  
  
Bucky grasps Steve's wrists with trembling hands. "Couldn't do it without you," he admits in a low, thready whisper.  
  
Steve's hand is broad and warm and Bucky thinks, distantly, that it is a good thing Steve is holding him down and keeping him in place like that. He feels so empty that otherwise, he might've just floated away completely.  
  
  
For the entire long march back to the army base, Bucky refuses to let Steve out of his sight.  


  
  
  
  
vi.

 

They bivouac in the mountains, settling down among clusters of petrified trees. The wind whipping through the pines is endless and bone-chilling, and after his first week of night watches, Bucky feels as if his back has been flayed open by the icy lashes.

  
Bucky patrols with his hand always on the hilt of his knife, stroking it lengthwise, thumb on the heel of the blade. One night, Steve joins him when he makes his circuit of the outer edge of camp, coming up behind him with silent footsteps.  
  
When Steve coughs lightly to alert Bucky of his presence, he nearly jumps out of his skin. Steve looks as terrified as Bucky feels. They both stare down at the point of Bucky's knife, glinting dully in the cloudy moonlight, just a hair's breadth away from piercing the soft underside of Steve's jaw.  
  
"Holy hell, Steve, I could've killed you," Bucky says, lowering the knife slowly, willing his heart to stop hammering in his chest. Steve doesn't move, his hands raised in a defensive pose, his eyes tracking the movement of the blade.  
  
"Where-" Steve stops, takes a deep breath. He finally lowers his arms. "Where'd you learn to move like that?" he asks, finally, looking at Bucky as if he is a complete stranger.  
  
"I joined the army," Bucky quips. When he starts to lean in, Steve flinches away from him just sightly, an infinitesimal gesture. Bucky freezes.  
  
"Bucky, wait," Steve says, arms coming up again, and he looks so helpless, so lost.  
  
Bucky feels like he is about to vomit. He turns away before he speaks, and his voice seems abnormally loud in the quiet stillness of the trees. “Hey, Steve. D'you think there could be wolves in this forest?”

Steve answers slowly, sounding confused. “What're you talking about, Buck?”

“Wolves. Do you think there might be some around?”

“Maybe,” Steve says. "Why?" When Bucky doesn't answer, Steve adds, "Probably not this far up in the mountains, though. If you're worried."

Bucky turns, then, and gives him a measured look. “Wolves are a lot like men.” He doesn't say anything else, just turns and walks further into the woods. After a long moment, he hears Steve sigh and follow.

  
Bucky waits until the camp is a bare flicker in the distance before he speaks up again.  
  
"Are you scared?" he asks, and Steve looks like he knows Bucky isn't just talking about the wolves anymore.  
  
"You shouldn't be," Bucky adds. "Wolves might be good hunters, but men are better killers." Bucky takes a deliberate, steady breath, thinking about Zola, thinking about the German soldier who bled out into the grass. “Men know how to enjoy it.”

Steve is silent at his side. With a rapid turn, Bucky closes the negligible space, grabs Steve by the collar and kisses him with a desperate force, a keen building in his throat. He pushes him up against the broad, solid trunk of the nearest tree and pins him there with the insistent rut of his hips.

Steve pulls Bucky flush against him, fingers digging pressure points into the back of his neck. Bucky's knife is trapped between their chests and with each breath, he can feel the blade slide, flat against his ribs, like a promise. He scrapes Steve's lip with his teeth until blood wells up between their mouths, tainting the kiss with a savage flavor.  
  
Bucky offers up a smirk instead of an apology. He licks away the droplets with a quick tongue, swallows it down, and leans in for more.

 

 

vii.  
  
  
One night, Bucky lies awake listening to the soft sound of Steve snoring next to him, and bites back a laugh. Some things never change.  
  
He leans over to pinch Steve's nose, playfully, the way he sometimes did when they were kids. Before he learned that Steve's spluttering, choking response as he came up for air wasn't something to laugh at.  
  
Bucky pulls back, one hand hovering over Steve's mouth. He watches Steve's Adam's apple bob, gaze tracking the slight tic in his jaw. He is suddenly fascinated by the smooth, white slope of skin.  
  
His hand is steady in the air, light puffs of warm breath tickling his palm. He thinks about the German soldier. He thinks about how easy it would be to draw his knife and stake Steve to the hard ground by his neck.  
  
"I did this for you," he whispers, and Steve's eyelids flutter but don't open. The words taste foul in Bucky's mouth but he knows, in some deep, dark place inside of him, that they are true. He is here because of Steve. Everything he did, every choice he made, was always to protect Steve.  
  
With a quiet scrape of metal against leather, Bucky's knife slips free from its sheath.  
  
  
-  
  
  
Steve wakes to the first rays of sunlight creeping over the crest of the mountain ridge. He rubs his eyes and turns a bleary gaze onto Bucky, who is crouched a few feet away, both hands clamped tightly between his knees.  
  
"I heard a noise," he says, in response to Steve's raised eyebrows. "I wanted to keep watch."  
  
Steve swallows hard and nods once, pushing himself up out of his bedroll, packing it up in silence.  
  
A full hour passes before Bucky can force himself to put the knife away.  
  
Three days later, they begin planning a mission to infiltrate a train reportedly carrying a high-ranking Hydra member.  
  
  
  


viii.

 

In the bitter, cold December of 1943, James Buchanan Barnes doesn't slip from the Hydra train speeding through the Eastern Alps.

 

He lets go.

 

 

ix.

Everything is bathed in red. Bucky tries to raise his head, to document his surroundings, and is blindsided by a wave of pain.  
  
He lays there, facedown in the snow, for an indeterminable period of time. Everything aches. His bones, his lungs, his skin.  
  
He suddenly thinks of Steve, of the last time he saw his face. It comes to him in a flash amid the haze of agony: Steve's wild eyes, his horrified expression, his mouth open in an attempt to scream. Bucky sobs into the ice under his lips. 

A quiet reply echoes back from the darkness. “There you are." Something hard wedges up under Bucky's ribs, turning him over, and as he blinks up at the gray sky, a broad body swims into view.  
  
“Steve,” Bucky says, torn between relief and terror. "What happened?"

The man standing above him leans in and hovers, almost close enough to kiss him, a dark silhouette carved out of the cliffs. "You died."  
  
Bucky sucks in a deep, painful breath. "Why?"

The man chuckles, wry and low, his mouth full of bright, sharp teeth. "You know the answer to that."

Bucky tries again. "Why didn't you save me?"  
  
Laughter resonates around him, pointed and malicious. "You think you were worth saving?"  
  
Bucky's tongue is leaden, the words are ice shards in his throat.  
  
"This is your fault," he forces out, choking with the effort of it, and then inside of his mouth is lined with frost. He can’t speak through the wintry chill, he can’t see Steve anymore, can’t see anything—

 

 

   


x.

 

Outside of the cryogenic tank, a team of scientists and doctors mill around the laboratory. One checks the subject’s core temperature, makes a note on his chart, and adjusts a switch on the side of the tank.

Another speaks up in a halting, uncertain tone. “Sir, I…I think he’s trying to speak.”

On a catwalk overhead, Alexander Pierce pauses in his relentless pacing and pins the man with a predatory stare. “Then increase the sedative,” he orders. “Do whatever is necessary.”

The doctors scramble to their stations, some calling directives across the room at each other and shuffling their paperwork across the lab tables, others coming up to fiddle with exterior panels and knobs.

 

Inside the tank, the Winter Soldier opens his eyes and takes a deep, cold breath.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings:  
> \+ blood  
> \+ battle-related violence  
> \+ battle-related death/killing  
> \+ mention of torture  
> \+ major character death  
> \+ minor character (OC) death  
>  
> 
> I think that's all of them but let me know if there's anything I've missed!
> 
> Sorry, this is not a happy fic.


End file.
